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Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

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Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#111

Post by coldcode »

jacquesm wrote: post #34
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #10

I used to be tempted to think that our modern generations are extra smart because of the cool gadgets we have. Seeing stuff like this, and reading ancient political / philosophical writings, gives me a much-needed reality check.

There is absolutely no difference between a human from 6000 years ago and one today. You could be an Einstein level genius back then, and likely unable to use any of those skills other than for the optimization of your environment. Also, you likely would not be able to use the bulk of it because your education would be non-existent, so your IQ compared to someone today would be much lower even though your raw intelli…

The Egyptians built the pyramids without computers or modern construction equipment. Building the Great Pyramid of Giza today would be a massive project even with modern technology. Yet someone figured out not only how to build it, but organize the workers, the logistics, and manage a long term project without much more than a reed and papyrus.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#112

Post by Shivetya »

Animats wrote: post #7
yread wrote: post #4

Note that the construction took 45 years.

Those little intermediate piers were probably the slowest part of the on site work. And the most vulnerable part of the bridge, because that's what gets eroded. It's still the biggest cause of bridge failure.

This is what I was curious about, how long did the coffer dams take to erect and pump out and were they done separately or two or more at once?

Still it seems that video makes it look far simpler that it truly was. Just the carting of the stone from quarry to the job site had to be an immense undertaking

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#114

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Fricken wrote: post #96
nom wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We work harder? Seriously? Most of the time in human history people were struggling to even stay alive. You had to work until you got enough food to feed your family, or you'd die. Live was not great, it was very stressful and inefficient (but people were used to it). This is still the case in most of the world, although overall not as bad as it once was, it is improving constantly. We're the lucky ones who can susta…

We haven't improved efficiency at all, it takes far more resources to keep a person going today than it did in the 14th century. It takes a couple decades of education before a person can even begin to enter the workforce. Raising kids was once an investment, now people can barely afford to raise 1 or 2. Our inefficient stuff is made by people in foreign countries working in factories whose lives really aren't any be…

>We haven't improved efficiency at all, it takes far more resources to keep a person going today than it did in the 14th century.

We very much have. We couldn't support our population with 14th century levels of efficiency. We wouldn't have enough farm land, fresh water, etc, etc.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#115

Post by jdmichal »

dmurray wrote: post #98
TeMPOraL wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As _Microft says, the gif is making rounds on the Internet (I've seen it last night on Mastodon). And to be honest, I'm not surprised that it beats the video - it communicates the exact same information, and the same sense of awe as the original video, but in a much more time-efficient manner. Watching the original now, I can't shake the feeling of how boringly slow it is.

If you think the 3-minute video was slow, the actual original took 45 years.

I imagine even just driving those (wooden?) pylons at the beginning to create the drainage areas took years. Even modern powered devices take a good day or so to pound in a single pylon around here.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#116

Post by throwaway0a5e »

coldcode wrote: post #111
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no difference between a human from 6000 years ago and one today. You could be an Einstein level genius back then, and likely unable to use any of those skills other than for the optimization of your environment. Also, you likely would not be able to use the bulk of it because your education would be non-existent, so your IQ compared to someone today would be much lower even though your raw intelli…

The Egyptians built the pyramids without computers or modern construction equipment. Building the Great Pyramid of Giza today would be a massive project even with modern technology. Yet someone figured out not only how to build it, but organize the workers, the logistics, and manage a long term project without much more than a reed and papyrus.

>Building the Great Pyramid of Giza today would be a massive project even with modern technology.

Only because we expect a far lesser fraction of societal productivity to be spent on them.

I don't know if anyone's run the numbers for the pyramids but European castles and cathedrals took a massive fraction of their area's productivity to create compared to modern civil engineering products.

Recreating the pyramids would only be "big" because modern society doesn't spend big on vanity projects like that anymore. With modern tech we could build the same pyramids much cheaper or many more pyramids for the same money.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#117

Post by feralimal »

fanf2 wrote: post #106
feralimal wrote: post #65

Nice animation, but I bear in mind that stuff that is presented like this is really just hearsay - we don't really know that it was built as presented. It could well have been built as shown - its a plausible hypothesis. But it is also plausible that the bridges were only built in the 18th century. Or maybe they were built 100's of years earlier. With any historical claims, we should have access to the source to be a…

At that time clocks did not have minute hands so they would not have been able to measure time that precisely.

That's one part of it. But where is this claim even from? Where are the sources?

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#118

Post by simoom22 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #114
Fricken wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven't improved efficiency at all, it takes far more resources to keep a person going today than it did in the 14th century. It takes a couple decades of education before a person can even begin to enter the workforce. Raising kids was once an investment, now people can barely afford to raise 1 or 2. Our inefficient stuff is made by people in foreign countries working in factories whose lives really aren't any be…

>We haven't improved efficiency at all, it takes far more resources to keep a person going today than it did in the 14th century. We very much have. We couldn't support our population with 14th century levels of efficiency. We wouldn't have enough farm land, fresh water, etc, etc.

He might mean energy efficiency. We just have access to way more energy these days, and we've been slurping that milkshake hard.

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#119

Post by mncharity »

How about reactive informal learning?

Informal learning, at places (eg museums) and on the web (education and outreach sites), is a recognized and institutionalized part of public education and outreach. And when something, like this gif, catches public attention, related resources will be linked. A little bit. In an unprepared, ad hoc, shallow, and unfunded kind of way.

A "teachable moment" is an transient opportunity to offer insight. And unplanned opportunity, but one a teacher trains and prepares for.

With viral content reaching so many, are we missing an opportunity by not being organized to exploit them as teachable moments? To rapidly and reactively link related content? History, transport, economics, construction. Might not a spike of viral be broadened, by better facilitating people following up on whatever aspect of the spike tickled their interest?

The compressed timescale makes things harder. But also easier - coping with the severe content-creation bottleneck of copyright is easier in a transient context.

How might we explore this space? Perhaps strengthen the existing "here's something related and interesting" pattern by aggregating and propagating such? A tweet "here are some links from HN", and an HN comment "here are some links from the twitter discussion"? Those are variously suboptimal, so what else?

Re: Animation of how bridges were built in Central Europe in the Middle Ages [video]

#120

Post by rjtavares »

woadwarrior01 wrote: post #97

I was in Rimini, Italy a couple of years ago and came across an ancient bridge called Ponte di Tiberio[1]. It's mind blowing to see modern cars plying on a bridge that was built nearly 2000 years ago. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_di_Tiberio_(Rimini)

Roman bridges have their own list article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_bridges

Also relevant: Hardcore History's "Thor Angels" episode has some great insights over the post-roman life in Europe.

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